Three Republican senators in the United States have cautioned their government over the possible nexus between social service organisations and Islamist terrorist groups, like the Hizb-ul Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, reported Times Now.
#Exclusive #Breaking | American Senators caution the U.S Govt over a possible nexus between American social service organisations & terror groups.
TIMES NOW’s Srinjoy Chowdhury with EXCLUSIVE details. Listen in. pic.twitter.com/AHd4o4QLip
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) November 15, 2019
The Congressmen of the US’s Republican Party have written the letter to Ambassador Nathan Sales, the coordinator of counter-terrorism in the US State Department, said the Times Now report.
In their letter, shared by Times Now, the Congressmen have urged the Ambassador for a full investigation into “potential terror links between US-based groups like the Helping Hands for Relief and Development (HHRD) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) with UN Security Council designated terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Hizb-ul Mujahideen.
The Republican Congressmen, namely Randy Weber, Chuck Fleischmann and Jim Banks, have stated that the HHRD and the ICNA “sell themselves as innocuous Muslim civil society organisations when they are, in fact, arms of one of the most radical networks in the world.”
In the letter dated November 1, these lawmakers have stated that ‘there is no doubt that the ICNA and HHRD are part of Jamaat-e-Islami’s international network.’ They added that the evidence of these two organisations’ links with terror groups is extensive and overwhelming.
They have claimed that these organisations have openly worked with US-designated terror organisations operating in Kashmir under the guise of international aid. Asserting that the US government must work on stopping the money flow from these organisations to the terrorist groups working in Kashmir, the letter stated that both groups are ‘directly involved in terror funding’.
As per the report, the HHRD had organised a conference in Pakistan in December 2017, at a government college in Timergara, which was co-sponsored by the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, a front of the LeT which was designated by the US Treasury Department as a terrorist organisation. Another co-sponsor was Al-Khidmat, which supports the Hizb-ul Mujahideen.
The Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation is listed as a terror organisation by the government of India too under the UAPA. The HHRD’s links with internationally designated terror organisation through the guise of ‘charity groups’ has been documented by many sources.
Read: How Pakistan ensured that Hafiz Saeed’s JuD is removed from the list of banned terror outfits
The congressmen have also highlighted that the ICNA has received 10 million USD as a grant from the Trump administration.
The US politicians have urged their government not to ‘fan the flames of war’ and help to keep peace in the Kashmir region by taking solid steps to curb funding to these so-called ‘charity’ organisations.
